Woodbury describes an ‘odyssey’

OSSIPEE, N.H. – A week after telling reporters he killed three men in nearby Conway, 31-year-old Michael Woodbury on Tuesday described the killings simply as his “little odyssey.”

Woodbury, charged with three counts of first-degree murder in Northern Carroll County District Court last week, discussed at the Carroll County Jail his previous years incarcerated and the recent killings.

The shooting deaths July 2 resulted from, as he’s said before, a robbery gone bad.

Killed at the Army Barracks store in Conway were store manager James Walker, 34, of Denmark, Maine, William Jones, 25, of Walpole, Mass., and Gary Jones, 23, of Plymouth, Mass. Offered a chance to address the victims’ families, Woodbury remained unapologetic.

He was released from Maine State Prison in the spring after serving time on robbery and theft convictions dating back to May 1998.

“I did a total of 10 and a half years straight. Then I got out May 5th of this year,” he said. “No probation. No nothing.”

According to Maine state records, Woodbury most recently served five years on a felony charge of theft by unauthorized taking committed in October 1996, for which he was convicted in 1998. As a felon, he is prohibited from owning or carrying a firearm.

Woodbury was convicted in 1998 of two charges, felony robbery committed Oct. 1, 1996, and felony theft committed Oct. 19, 1996. When he was convicted, Maine revoked his probation from a Nov. 30, 1994, felony robbery conviction for which he was sentenced to serve seven years in prison, with all but two years suspended. As part of that sentence, Woodbury was also required to pay $1,146 in restitution for the 1994 robbery. At some point between the 1994 and 1996 convictions, he also served time in Florida, but his jail time does not appear to be more than 10 consecutive years, as he claims, with records showing he has spent short periods of time out of prison between convictions.

According to police, in the weeks between his May release from prison and his arrest in Fryeburg, Maine, last week, Woodbury went on a crime spree, including allegedly burning down a million-dollar home in Georgia on June 12.

Woodbury said he had help with that.

“There was a girl I was with when I started this little odyssey,” Woodbury said. “Her name is Megan Reeves. She is 18. She just turned 18.”

He describes her as “a random girl that was just hanging out with me. She was my lookout on the fire. She actually physically tried to stop me from setting the fire,” he said. “I was like the little bad angel on her shoulder the whole time.”

In addition to the arson in St. Simons Island, Ga., Woodbury also has two outstanding warrants for forgery, allegedly committed in Georgia the day after the fire, according to news reports. He is also wanted in connection with breaking into a house there and stealing a car to flee the scene.

On June 19, Woodbury allegedly held up the Emmy Alex Resale Shop in Chattanooga, Tenn., with a knife. A house near that scene was ransacked, and police later recovered the stolen Georgia vehicle.

Reeves, who is from Windham, Maine, and Woodbury, who is also from Windham, have been charged with arson and burglary in connection with the house fire, and Reeves has since been extradited from Kentucky to Georgia. Woodbury was extradited from Oxford County, Maine, to New Hampshire last week to face trial on the murder charges.

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